Following the press release regarding College President Dr Lorcan Martin’s opening address to the College NCHD Conference 2025 and his interview on Morning Ireland, Eilish O’Regan wrote for the Irish Independent this weekend about the planned Mental Health Bill and the concerns of the College.
Read the article in the Irish Independent (behind a paywall) here.
Read a highlight from the article below:
Severely mentally ill patients are at risk over being deprived of treatment if a planned new “cruel” law is given the go-ahead, a leading psychiatrist has warned.
Dr Lorcan Martin, president of the College of Psychiatrists, said the Government’s proposed Mental Health Bill, will “torture” patients. He said it shifts the power to judges only to decide on giving involuntary treatment of those patients who lack insight and capacity.
“If psychiatrists were to follow the legislation as proposed, it would amount to torture as ill patients would see treatment deprived or delayed,” he said.
The bill allows for the involuntary hospitalisation of severely mentally ill patients as needed, but while the right to autonomy is critically important, it should not, and cannot, supersede the right to treatment for those who need it, Dr Martin told trainee psychiatrists at the college’s [NCHD] conference.
The delayed bill, which is proposing the modernisation of care of the mentally ill has been put back on this Government’s legislative programme and will proceed to committee scrutiny having completed second stage last autumn.
“I cannot overstate the concerns we have regarding the proposed Mental Health Bill which. In its current form, it is utterly cruel and will have a hugely detrimental effect on patients and their families,” Dr Martin said.
He said the bill allows for a 21-day window for involuntary treatment, but that only applies if someone poses a threat to the life or health of themselves or another person.
The vast majority of people who need to be hospitalised and treated involuntarily do not pose that risk, so they would be denied treatment under the proposed bill, he said.
